At the tree, Pellinore barked out a harsh laugh. Gawain whirled and struck him hard across the face with the flat of the blade. “Coward,” Garet accused me.

True enough. If I were not such a coward, I would not have come with them at all.

“How do you ever expect to be a knight?” grumbled Gawain, disgusted with me.

They turned their backs on me and—and they went on with it. I wish to say no more. Standing back, clutching three pairs of reins, I lowered my eyes and would not watch—but I could not close my ears. I heard my brothers jeering. I heard their blades thudding into flesh. I heard the screams—toward the end, Pellinore could not help but scream.

When he fell silent, I looked up. That was a mistake. I had not known there was so much blood in a man.

Later, back in our chamber in Camelot, I cleaned the weapons. That was my job. Then I gathered my things and bundled them. Sitting and drinking, my brothers did not notice at first.

“Mordred, what are you doing?” Gawain exclaimed as I hefted my belongings and headed out the door.

“You don’t have to go. You can’t help it that you’re a coward,” Garet told me quite sincerely.

“There’s too much I can’t help,” I told him.

I moved into Nyneve’s empty tower. Folk talked, of course, and wanted to know why, and I am sure Gawain and Garet gave them an explanation. Thus began my reputation for cowardice.

Thus began also my time of being alone. I had no lady; most damsels seemed afraid of me. Nyneve, my friend and mentor, was gone. I still served Gawain and Garet as their squire, but we were silent, shame had come between us, and they called on me less often.

I thought sometimes: What was the Round Table, truly, that it honored knights such as Sir Pellinore? And Sir Gawain?

I went seldom to court. The place in Camelot where I felt most at peace those winter days was the kennel, lying in a warm nest of straw with Gull and her pups.